By-Elections Begin In Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal And Assam; Counting On October 9

Polling opened at 7 am on Tuesday in by-elections for five assembly seats and one Lok Sabha constituency across Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal and Assam. Officials will count the votes on October 9.

The bypolls cover Madurantakam and Dharapuram in Tamil Nadu, Thattanchavady in Puducherry, Nandigram and Rejinagar in West Bengal, and the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency in Assam. Voting in the assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal will run until 6 pm, while polling in Nagaon will close at 5 pm.

Tamil Nadu Bypolls

For chief minister C Joseph Vijay, the Madurantakam and Dharapuram contests are TVK's first major electoral test since the party came to power after the April assembly elections, two years after it was launched.

Madurantakam has 27 contenders and Dharapuram has 30. The seats fell vacant after AIADMK MLAs Maragatham Kumaravel of Madurantakam and P Sathyabama of Dharapuram resigned, then joined TVK. The party has fielded both in the bypolls.

The DMK, AIADMK and CPI have also fielded candidates. The CPI was among the parties that backed TVK after it emerged as the single-largest party and formed the government.

The Tamil Nadu races were set off by sharp exchanges between DMK and TVK. In Madurantakam, DMK candidate I Paranthamen accused TVK of horse-trading and asked for action against Vijay, while former DMK minister V Senthilbalaji alleged that saris and lamps were being handed out to voters in Dharapuram.

TVK denied the charges and approached the Election Commission, saying Paranthamen was campaigning during the silent period and trying to sway voters. It also sought his disqualification. TVK dismissed the alleged gift distribution as a last-minute effort to tarnish its image.

Nandigram in Focus

Nandigram in Purba Medinipur is the most politically symbolic of the two West Bengal contests. The constituency was the centre of Mamata Banerjee's anti-land acquisition movement that helped pave the way for the TMC's rise in 2011. It was also where BJP's Suvendu Adhikari defeated Banerjee in 2021.

Adhikari, now chief minister, won Nandigram again in the 2026 assembly election but opted to keep Bhabanipur, which left the seat vacant and triggered the bypoll.

The BJP has fielded Hasirani Rath; her son Chandranath Rath, a former aide of Adhikari, was shot dead on May 6, two days after the BJP won the assembly elections.

The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC faction's nominee Sanchita Pradhan Dey withdrew after meeting Adhikari. Banerjee later backed Congress nominee Milan Pradhan, saying the move was meant to strengthen the INDIA bloc.

Pradhan was arrested in older cases linked to the 2007 Nandigram land-acquisition agitation. He later secured interim bail and went back to campaigning. On September 29, the Calcutta high court extended that relief till October 21, while the Supreme Court adjourned the West Bengal government's challenge to the order.

The rival TMC faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee has fielded Mohammad Eteshamul Haque, while the CPI has nominated Santigopal Giri.

Hours before polling, the Election Commission ordered that Ajay Kumar Mishra, the officer-in-charge of Nandigram police station, be replaced. Debashis Sarkar, formerly traffic inspector-in-charge at the East Midnapore traffic control room, took over as the new IC. The EC did not say why he was shifted.

Altogether, 71 companies of central forces have been deployed for the Nandigram and Rejinagar bypolls — 37 in Nandigram and 34 in Rejinagar. Nandigram has 323 polling stations and 2.67 lakh electors, with webcasting at all booths.

Rejinagar Five-Way Battle

Rejinagar in Murshidabad became vacant after Humayun Kabir, who won both Rejinagar and Nowda in the 2026 assembly election, decided to retain Nowda.

Kabir had earlier set up the Aam Janata Unnayan Party after being suspended and then expelled by the TMC. His party has fielded his son Golam Nabi Azad in Rejinagar, where about 70% of voters are from the minority community.

The BJP has put up former Murshidabad district president Sakharav Sarkar. The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC faction has named Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, while the rival TMC faction has fielded Safiuzzaman Sheikh. Congress has nominated Mohammad Abdullahil Kafi and CPI(M) has fielded Syed Asad Ali.

The administration has put multi-layered security arrangements in place, and no administrative changes were reported in Rejinagar.

Rejinagar has 315 polling stations and 2.57 lakh electors, with webcasting at all booths.

Assam Bypoll Battle

Polling also opened at 7 am in the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency in Assam, where the BJP, Congress and AIUDF are the main contenders among 15 candidates.

The bypoll was triggered after Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi resigned and later fought the Dispur assembly election on a BJP ticket. Congress has fielded former MLA Sibamoni Bora, while the BJP has nominated Devashish Sharma, an ex-IAS officer.

AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal is also in the race after replacing the party's original nominee Rejaul Karim Sarkar.

More than 55% of Nagaon's voters belong to the minority community. The BJP is aiming to expand its base in the constituency, while Congress is trying to hold the seat it won after Bordoloi's victories in 2019 and 2024. AIUDF is trying to preserve its influence after its representation fell from 16 MLAs to two in the April assembly election.

The district administration has marked 624 polling stations as sensitive. A total of 19.05 lakh voters — including 9.43 lakh women and 50 third-gender electors — are eligible to vote. The constituency has 2,312 polling stations, including five auxiliary booths.

The Assam Chief Electoral Officer's office stated that polling personnel and materials had been sent out and law-and-order arrangements reviewed. Home voting through postal ballot has already been completed.

Puducherry Popularity Test

Polling started at 7 am in Thattanchavady in Puducherry, where the four-month-old NDA government led by chief minister N Rangasamy faces a test.

Rangasamy won Thattanchavady and Mangalam in the April assembly elections, then kept Mangalam and left this seat open. The All India NR Congress, which leads the NDA government, has fielded Ashok Anand.

The DMK has nominated K Sethu Selvam and Congress has fielded E Vinayagam. Congress has the backing of its Tamil Nadu ally TVK.

Eleven candidates are in the fray, and the contest is being viewed as a three-way fight among the ruling AINRC-led NDA, Congress and DMK.

Counting for all six bypolls is scheduled for October 9.